


The Planet's Last Dance

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Era, M/M, Trans Enjolras, like really really canon time, like revisiting of canon completely, mature rating only for the death and the real bad sads, not many others speak but they are there!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 01:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4371872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the night passed, and as it became increasingly clear to Grantaire that he would not be going home until daylight helped him on his way, he became intimately acquainted with the streets of Paris and its creatures.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” and he could hear the frown in the woman's voice above him.</p><p>“He was too much. I was too little. And justice was just enough.”</p><p> </p><p>*A re-imagining of Hugo's canon, in which Grantaire was not always the cynic, Enjolras was not always angry with him, and there had been more smiles once exchanged between them besides at the moment of death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Planet's Last Dance

As the night passed, and as it became increasingly clear to Grantaire that he would not be going home until daylight helped him on his way, he became intimately acquainted with the streets of Paris and its creatures.

“Love, what are you looking for?” a woman purred, coaxing his face to look at her. He swatted her away. “You’re not looking for me?”

“No,” he groaned, curling upon himself. It had turned from May to June that very day, and it was getting warmer. He would not freeze, but the comfort of his own body helped. “No.”

“What’s wrong?” and he could hear the frown in her very voice.

“He was too much. I was too little. And justice was just enough.” And he leaned against a barrel, and he fell asleep.

That was, truly, how it was. Justice–the lady of the revolution at hand, the irresistible call of a people ready to fight for what Grantaire had been persuaded long ago to believe that they deserved. And he had believed. _Sweet Jesus_ , he had believed.

How could he not believe in what Enjolras was? When this angel of certain death marched into his life, summer of 1826, when he hid from the rain under the awning of the inn in which Grantaire had been drinking his day away–he would have believed anything. He looked beautiful in those first moments, his golden curls dripping as he looked out into the streets. He seemed anxious, and restless, as if he was being personally attacked by the inclement weather. Grantaire watched him with more focus than was appropriate for a drunkard, afraid that if he blinked, the vision would disappear. But he did not. Instead, he had come inside, allowing Grantaire approach him.

“What is your name?” he asked.

The vision looked down. He looked down at this shorter, hairier man. He looked down at a man who was suddenly hyper-aware of all the flaws he believed himself to have. He looked down at a man who wished for nothing but to take back to words, to continue watching from afar, if only to understand how such a being had crossed his path.

To be sure, Grantaire knew that he had never seen anyone like this person, and he was sure that even a man who traveled the whole world could not be certain that anyone like him existed elsewhere. And that was only physical. It was all he knew when this person opened his mouth and answered a confident, “Enjolras. And yours, citizen?”

“Citizen,” Grantaire had answered, “A strange thing to be calling me, with a king on the throne.”

“That is precisely why I must call you as you are,” this Enjolras answered. “Your name?”

“Grantaire,” he answered, bowing his head slightly. “Please, sit. Though the rain is becoming on you, it must be uncomfortable.” He could not fear the way his words came out; in Le Marais, this flirtation between men was hidden in plain sight. What he _could_ fear was the way Enjolras sat in slight hesitation, the candles on the table illuminating his features. _Feminine_ features, ones that made Grantaire tilt his head.

Enjolras coughed, “Well--are you going to buy a man a drink or just stare at one?” Grantaire accepted his flippant declaration of who he was, nodding as he rose to demand another bottle for his new acquaintance.

He was from wealth, Grantaire would learn, but he despised such. He had left the parents who disowned him, choosing poverty over oppression of his own person. And for many, many reasons that did not pertain to his own person as well. There was the matter of the classes, the gap between the rich and poor having widened since the Revolution, and continually widening as 1826 turned into 1827. There was the matter of what Enjolras declared the _unfinished revolution_ , something which Grantaire found to be most curious about him. He had decided somewhere amidst his years that the French Revolution had been completed in haste and, as a people, the good French had forgotten what they had fought for. ****

“There is a part of me, if I may be frank, that misses the days of the guillotine,” Enjolras said, thoughtfully, waiting out a rainstorm inside. “Another part of me wonders how on earth we allowed such a death machine to work in our midst.”

“Such violent thoughts for a pretty face.”

“Beauty means nothing in the throes of revolution, have you not heard of Marie-Antoinette?”

“She does sound rather familiar. Did she live around here? Oh, right, yes, indeed, I did hear that her head once rolled.”

“I really must find better company from the rain,” Enjolras thought aloud, though smiling softly to himself. “It is said that she was one of the most beautiful women in the world, though before all her hair was shaved and she was placed in an execution sheath, of course. Then, she was like any other prisoner.” Grantaire could see in his mind’s eye Enjolras reading those old newspapers, the ones which laid blame on the queen entirely. He thought differently, and he was about to say so.

“Do you think they did right in ending her life then?”

“I think they did right in trying to end the _monarchy_ , but--” he made a face, and Grantaire knew what was coming. “It created an empty space, and evil men thrive in empty spaces.”

“Genesis 1 tells us such.”

“I am not debating religion with you, cynic,” Enjolras huffed, straightening up. He looked straight ahead, his serious nature enough to make Grantaire smile to himself. _Here he comes._ “We let Napoleon in without a fight.” _There he was._

Grantaire firmly believed that Enjolras had dreams about flying to Corsica decades earlier and preventing Napoleon’s birth, his simple existence being a blight on the world, if one listened to Enjolras. And-- _Lord_ , did Grantaire listen to Enjolras.

Somewhere in their early conversations, held outside when Enjolras could stand company as he tried to herald people to read pamphlets he or another student had written about the socioeconomic issues they so clung to, Grantaire had found that his birthday was March 19th. And as the date became closer, Grantaire wondered how he could get away with presenting him with a gift. A gift that could express how much he wished to follow this man with his life, as meagre and ordinary and otherwise useless as his life was. It turned out that it was not an easy task. But he thought.

And that night he came outside to Enjolras, a bottle of champagne in his hand, and smiled. “Happy birthday, Enjolras,” he said proudly, reveling in the confusion of a serious person who surely believed that someone like Grantaire had forgotten the date. But he accepted a flute of the liquid, even smiling in thanks as he sat after a long day of passing out political flyers and dodging exhausting police officers who simply wanted to distract him, as he had a permit to do what he was doing. Grantaire knew this; he’d talked with him every day. Enjolras’ routines were just as much Grantaire’s routines as his own. And because Enjolras’ routine revolved around his cause, Grantaire had decided to adopt it as well. “I read the pamphlets,” he said then, taking advantage of the drinking Enjolras to get in his confession. “If I can help--well, it’ll benefit me to fight for this.”

“It’ll benefit everyone,” Enjolras answered, his response a reflex. And then he realized what had been said, “Grantaire, I--are you asking to join us?”

“If I am already here…” he shrugged, “And like I said, I did read the pamphlets.” He let out a laugh, “Long live the Republic!”

Enjolras gazed at him, his blue eyes boring into Grantaire’s. It was nearly overwhelming--the face of God was not to be looked upon, but he knew Enjolras was not God. No, because God once told Moses that he was not fit to look upon God, that it was not safe. Enjolras said nothing to Grantaire. It was the only solid proof Grantaire had, though the jury was still out on what exactly his certain divinity could be called.

But he wanted to know, and he ached to know however he could. So he dared to reach out, to touch his hand slightly. “Let me belong to your revolution, if it pleases you.”

Grantaire would never know if it was truly him, or if it was impulse from his words that made Enjolras press against him in that alleyway. They stayed there, hands touching with their lips, kisses always initiated by Grantaire though accepted by Enjolras, for the time it took from the dusk to become a dark, deep night. Grantaire returned to his bed alone, respecting the chastity of Enjolras, but he was renewed in the baptism with which he had been gifted.

He drank less that year, and he laughed more. He fought less, and he loved more. Enjolras began to share the small room he rented during some evenings, and then he began to share his bed. They opened their tiny living quarters to meetings when the cafes were taken, and it was during these meetings that Grantaire met a quickly expanding group of students. Joly, and Combeferre, and Feuilly, and Bossuet, and Courfeyrac, and Bahorel, and Prouvaire--they became a family, in addition to the many who joined them on a less intimate level.

But as close as they were, Grantaire believed none were as close as he and Enjolras. There was nothing as intimate as the way he treated Enjolras when they were alone, when he knew that his strong revolutionary was fading fast in the suppression of his lungs by the tight binding across his chest.

“Come,” Grantaire would demand, pulling his hand from the crowd, leaving it to their friends to distract themselves and the rest who were milling about. Rushed into hidden places, Grantaire would turn him around, letting Enjolras slowly relax as he pulled the bandages away, sitting the blond down so that he slumped, his chest heaving with deep breaths. He would wipe his brow, clearing him of the day’s sweat in the lingering summer, extending into early October. Crouching down, Grantaire would meet Enjolras’ eyes expectantly, “Breathing?”

“Yes,” he said on one of these afternoons, and he reached out to Grantaire’s shirt, bringing him close. After holding him for a moment, he pulled away, chest still heaving. “Grantaire, they’re all so excited.” And the angel graced him with a smile, and he laughed. Grantaire nodded, encouraging him. And though what he wouldn’t give, on the dawn of his revolution, to go back and change his reaction, he cannot regret the way that his encouragement bolstered Enjolras.

Enjolras was laughing, and he was breathing and lively, and then he was crying for the overwhelming happiness he felt at a people’s demanding their lives to be better. Grantaire performed his duty, clearing happily falling tears from Enjolras’ perfect skin with his lips, kissing the moist skin with the most delicate of touches. It was only he who saw how precious this pillar of fearless strength truly was.

Falling into a chilly autumn, there were less who wished to be outside for protests, so it slowed down. But Enjolras’ compassion never slowed, especially when more were hungry, and cold as the season changed. He began to spend his days away from Grantaire, who worked as much as he could so that they could keep their room (early rent kept unwanted questions from the landlord about the two men who were sharing a room with one bed--one of which was remarkably feminine --away). And so the evenings were spent exhausted, Grantaire pulling Enjolras close and wondering if he was too tired to be present with him.

And sometimes he was not too tired. Sometimes, they would speak of a life beyond the revolution, one shared between them, of being able to afford more than one room, and of Enjolras not needing a massage every night for all the standing he did.

Grantaire would walk quickly around the room, “And would you like flowers, Enjolras? We would have fresh flowers in the windows, red poppies for your enjoyment, and sunflowers to bring balance. We would _throw_ open the windows--” and he did so, ignoring the cold and ignoring the protests from an Enjolras who was wrapped in a sheet, “--and let in the _sun_ , and enjoy the beauty of the song of a people who are free!”

“Close the window, Grantaire!” Enjolras laughed, wrapping the sheet around himself tighter.

“Oh, but can you not hear them? _Les flammes d'Etna sur ses laves antiques_ \--” he began to sing, and though he made to close the windows then, he heard the answering lines from below. “Ah! They are here, dearest Enjolras, and they are singing!” He did close the window, and he returned to Enjolras, and Grantaire hooked his fingers on the sheet, marveling how his brown fingers contrasted so beautifully with the white of the sheet, of Enjolras' skin. “And let me sing of the beauty you hide here.”

Enjolras allowed him, smiling fondly until he gasped from Grantaire’s tongue and lips on his skin. “Do you think yourself charming, singing of the Revolution?”

Grantaire looked up, his eyes dark, “If I may say so, you are remarkably pliant for someone who denies my charm.”

These were times in which Enjolras smiled with Grantaire’s speeches, full as they were with revolutionary fervor that may as well have been his own. These were times in which Grantaire made him laugh, and still stole dances, and was allowed to laugh at the two left feet that Enjolras had been cursed with. These were the winter months on the dawn of the true winter.

Grantaire recognized when he became more distant. There were more nights in the winter that Enjolras apologized, half-heartedly, when he remained at a meeting-place with Combeferre or someone else instead of returning to their room. When he snapped at Grantaire for talking too much, when he angrily said they were wasting time--even though barely two months prior he would laugh.

He wondered if Enjolras would leave, if he would find a place to stay with his friends officially, if he would relieve Grantaire of his life’s duty. He thought of numerous counter-arguments: their plans to revel together in a pristine new Paris, their plans to live their lives out together. In those quiet nights, when Grantaire slept alone except for his hope that these lonely nights would come to an end soon, he decided that it would never be him who would leave. He would cherish the plans they had made, tuck them safely in his mind where they could not be erased by Enjolras’ near-sighted excitement. If there was to be a revolution, he was not fighting for a people, but for a person. That much was clear long before it needed to be clear.

Enjolras was not home for his birthday in 1828, and Grantaire toasted him alone. He knew it would come after that. He knew it would come because of the difference between that night and the year prior, the anniversary of the first time they touched. He dreamed of the way Enjolras had grown to curl around him, his long limbs as much tendrils as his hair was. And he ached.

He ached.

He ached.

Easter came in early April, only a couple weeks having passed between his birthday and the one-thousand, seven-hundred and ninety-eighth anniversary of the risen Christ. It was that day that Grantaire’s crucifixion began.

They weren’t even in their own room. They were leaning against the wall one morning. It was the _morning_ , for God's sake, with church bells ringing and ladies wearing bonnets as they passed. And Grantaire was being flogged by Enjolras’ disengaged gaze.

“I do not have the time I should have if I am in a relationship,” he told him, not even having the pity to look away. No, he was certain, and his unflinching gaze told all this.

“Enjolras, summer is approaching. The revolution has not lost momentum. It will begin soon, won’t it?” His tone was disgustingly hopeful, hoping against hope for an answer he knew wasn’t the right one to hope for.

“I cannot be sure,” he said, shrugging. “But even until then, and throughout, I really must lend my entire focus to our cause.” Grantaire fought the urge to argue that this was Enjolras’ cause, that it had always been Enjolras’ cause, and that Grantaire’s was only the person in front of him. “I know I have not been fair to you.”

“Do you think me a weak soul, that I cannot handle adjusting to a compressed time for you? I believe I have shown myself to be accepting of this cause, to less time, to--” He trailed off, frustrated by the lack of emotion in Enjolras’ face. “Do you feel nothing?”

“How can you ask me that?”

“I see nothing,” Grantaire replied, and though he regretted how awful it was, he went on. “You work yourself to the very bone, Enjolras, and you forbid me from caring the way I am supposed to. I have meant every word to you! I have meant every ounce of affection, and I know--I know somewhere you have as well, so tell me where has that gone?”

Enjolras finally looked away, swallowing and straightening his posture. “This is too much for my own affectations to get in the way.”

_He was too much. I was too little. Justice was just enough._

“Are you not going to come back home? Where will you sleep? You do need to sleep.”

“I am very well-aware of what I need,” he said, turning back to Grantaire. “I will find places.”

He studied him for a moment more, “The door will be unlocked.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

He didn’t believe him in the slightest, and he walked away.

Grantaire didn’t know where Enjolras would stay, and he told himself he did not care. He stayed away from everyone for a matter of only two days, and then he came to sit in on a meeting. It was a different place for him; ever since he had begun, he had sat next to Enjolras, encouraging his shouts, questioning things only when these questions could strengthen his speech. But now, he sat in the back, alone at a small table, drinking and making eye contact with Enjolras even when it was not met. His victory was discomfort. His victory was annoyance. His victory was any response that made Enjolras remember what plans they had, and what plans he had thrown away.

Joly and Bossuet, bless their souls, would come and keep him company at his new place. “Perhaps you should try to keep some distance,” Joly suggested. “We are worried about your drinking, Grantaire.”

Grantaire laughed, loud enough to make Combeferre in the front falter in his own speech. He hushed himself as he spoke. “That should be the least of your worries, Joly. We are here, at the eve of our executions, do you not see it? Bring us the bishops, for I have worries to share. I worry for our souls, for our bodies, for our minds. Which of us will die in fear, and which of us will die in pride? I can tell a few--I am sure you know who I name when I say I know the one who will die in pride. And what a sin, that pride is! Lending itself to illusions of grandeur, the great wings that lifted Icarus to his death. We are nothing without pride, given its tendency to self-preserve a life that he believe is worth living--but it kills us just the same, Joly, just the same.”

There was a new arrival that night, a young, wealthy-looking man who looked as lost as Grantaire currently felt. “And who is this, with dear Courfeyrac?” he asked, pouring another glass.

“Marius Pontmercy,” Bossuet replied, “He is the one for whom I lost my academic career.”

“You are better for it, friend, you are better off. If I were intelligent, I would enter, only to leave as you did. Though with much less heroism,” he continued. He poured glasses for Joly and Bossuet then, handing them around. He lifted the glass, his eyes drifting to Enjolras. “To the only certainty there is,” he declaimed, worshipping now his full glass. He slammed it down after downing it, “I am thirsty. Mortals! I am dreaming--” and he went on. And he went on.

As he had lost that which was most himself--namely, Enjolras--Grantaire was not surprised that he lost much of his wits about himself. It was much easier to drink without Enjolras’ disdainful gaze upon him. Besides, with their new member, with whom Courfeyrac took an intense liking, there was a young man to educate, a new mind to indoctrinate, a new mouth to supplicate on behalf of the people’s will.

 _They will not miss me_ , he would think on the eves of his disappearances. He was, mostly, correct. As he pulled his acts more, slipping from meetings and from his room for weeks at a time, always coming back to pay the rent and fill his friends’ time with exaggerated stories from his time away...these disappearances became easier. He became altogether used to Enjolras’ lack of reaction. He stopped aching for the way the blond had once greeted him with a smile, with arms around his neck and a kiss to his cheek, to his lips.

Grantaire wondered, when he would leave everyone, if it had simply been a matter of a relationship running its course. Had Enjolras been too young? Grantaire knew he was less than two years older, but had he been a youthful reverie? Someone to pass the time until he realized that there was more than someone like him?

But no, Enjolras had never known anyone else. He hadn’t wanted to. He expressed this with Grantaire, confided how strange he had once thought himself, since he could not find interest in other people. He was no Marius Pontmercy, who dragged Courfeyrac and Bossuet and even Grantaire to a ball in order to look for a girl he was in love with that week. No, Enjolras had sealed himself to one man and one man only once, and he knew now that he had chosen to seal himself to the Republic, or the Dream of such at the very least.

He tested Enjolras in 1829, drink guarding against any boundary. At one particular meeting, he was angry with Courfeyrac for lingering with a partner in his bed instead of arriving to plan something or other. Grantaire had little idea on his best days, and no idea on his worst--and he had long since passed his best days behind.

“Oh, Enjolras, you condemn too heartily for satisfying a body’s desire,” he shrugged, interrupting any train of thought that had been spilling out of the leader’s mouth. The room fell silent; it had become remarkably rare for Grantaire to stand from his back table and address Enjolras directly. But he was. “Courfeyrac is one of many in a long line of men who put their evolutionary needs before the needs of a people--Combeferre, I am sure, could do a better job than I explaining evolutionary needs, but he is not speaking. I am, and I am perhaps not the best one to speak at all, for I am known to destroy true needs in order to give in to temporal wants, as you no doubt know by this glass in my hand.”

“Grantaire--” Enjolras warned, but he held up his hand for silence.

Coming from behind his table, he addressed the room. “Call this drink my forty pieces of silver, and call fornication Courfeyrac’s, but do not call us deviations from nature! We are descended from a race who took a beautiful fruit over commands from God, how do you suggest we deviate from _this_ nature? And what of the heroes of our time? Jehan! Oh dear Prouvaire can tell you more, if you wish to know, but our heroes of time long ago were distracted knaves, and they ended their lives full of shame. If I am to be shamed--and the records do show that I am, and that you are, as well--then allow me to have control over my shame. Allow me to drink. Allow Courfeyrac to fuck! And I--” he stepped ever-closer to Enjolras, “Will allow you to walk to your certain death.”

“What do you mean to say?” Enjolras asked, cold and angry.

“Well, this is a surprise! Are you meaning to say you do not wish to join the martyrs? In all the time that I have known you, it seems to be all you ever talk about!” He knew he was getting louder. He couldn’t remember if it was Enjolras he was testing, or himself anymore. “Or perhaps just after Easter last year! You encourage young additions to our cause with assurances that some will die, that this fight will end with certain death! Do you think yourself to be canonized? Do you think yourself to be a hero? It takes more than suicide to be that, Enjolras!” He was yelling, and he had a vague knowledge of someone behind him, ready to take him outside if given the order. From the height, he wanted to laugh. Bahorel--of all people--was ready to remove him for an outburst. “Forgive me if I believe that some harmless desire is preferable to your desire for certain death.”

Enjolras neither softened nor hardened. He looked at Grantaire with empty eyes. “Leave us to our cause, if you are not prepared to give all you have.”

“I have already given everything,” he hissed. He gave him another moment, but Enjolras did not answer. So he walked out, swearing as he went.

He was absent during July of 1830, during _Les Trois Glorieuses_ , and he learned when he returned that many had been as well. It had been too hot, some explained. They had moved into the country with many friends and others who would otherwise be unprotected from the elements. Grantaire could not think of anything worse, being left in a large country house with many, including Enjolras. Enjolras, too, could not think of anything worse, but it was because he ached to be in Paris.

Bahorel had remained, and he did not seem keen to allow Enjolras to forget that he had been present in what some had called the Second Revolution. There was news abounding: Feuilly took great care in letting everyone know that Poland had followed France in another uprising, unsuccessful as it was. There were rebellions in the Netherland, in Brussels--Grantaire was certain Enjolras would never leave Paris again, in the hope that there would be a Third.

And so, even though his disappearances had given him respite, had given him time to be alone and heal in small ways, Grantaire took a silent vow never to leave Paris as well. He would not miss Enjolras’ death. He would not miss his own.

He missed no meeting in the fall of 1830, and no meeting in all of 1831. He laughed freely at how Marius so pursued a woman he knew nothing about. For him, it was altogether maddening to see such hope in love. For him, his only hope was that every night, he would collapse drunk enough in bed that he would not notice it was empty.

Most nights, he was successful, but he was not saved from all of his pain. In the cruel winter, January of 1832, he was startled awake by movement in the sheets. “What is this?” he whispered, wiping sleep from his eyes. He was not one to defend himself at first instinct. “I cannot imagine I brought a companion here, for I do not--”

“Do you bring people here?”

Enjolras’ voice made him stop, made him still, made him completely silent. He waited, wanting to understand how he could be here, in his bed, as if it were nearly four years prior--had it already been four years? The absinthe had blessed him with a quickened, if confusing, life, but had cursed him with the inability to heal from clear memories of that happy time. Or perhaps it had been Enjolras who had cursed him. But now?

“Enjolras,” he breathed, “I could never bring people here.”

It was dark, but the windows had always faced lights, resulting in a relatively well-lit room, even at night. It was one of the reasons why Grantaire could afford it. He could see him, closer than he had been for too long. He couldn’t understand. How many times had he ached for Enjolras to be here in their bed again? And why now?

Enjolras looked down, “You never stir,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re always asleep,” as if that would make more sense. “I never disturb you like this.”

Grantaire didn’t keep his mouth from falling open in shock. Enjolras had been here. Multiples times, he had been here as Grantaire slept, drunk every time. “How long have you--”

“You said the door would be open,” Enjolras explained, his voice quiet. “It was easier in the summer to stay away, but when it got cold, I would be here more. Especially when Marius was taken in by Courfeyrac. Then there was no room there.” He swallowed, “I thought you knew, along the way.”

“I’ve been drunk for years,” Grantaire told him, shaking his head. “My _God_ , Enjolras--you’ve been coming home to sleep?”

Enjolras pressed a hand to his forehead, “I should go.” And he immediately rose, causing Grantaire to shoot out his arm, his hand wrapping around his wrist.

“Please, don’t. Please,” he begged without dignity. “You need sleep. I could leave.”

“No,” Enjolras said, more sudden than reflex. He slowly lowered himself to the bed.

“You’ll let me sleep here? You’ll stay?”

His unabashed hopefulness made Enjolras regard him with discomfort, “Have I been this unkind, to let decent equality be a gift to you?”

“To be equal with you--to share anything with you had always been a gift I did not deserve,” Grantaire murmured.

Enjolras shook his head, “You deserve the life we are fighting for, like all people.”

“I am content to only have tonight.”

“Grantaire, please,” Enjolras dismissed.

“No!” he said, suddenly forceful. He felt a burning in his throat, a natural alcohol on a burning sore, and the tears welled quicker than was dignified. “I have missed you like any man could miss one of his senses, and I have loved you, and I have burned for you, Enjolras. I am not in attendance in those meetings to make you look upon my face. I would not wish that upon anyone. It is not your guilt that I am after, though I do admit in my immaturity it had been at one time. I am there because I need to see yours! A blind man sees only light and dark, and I have had my fill of dark, and I have tried finding light elsewhere, to no avail. Please, sleep here, and let me sleep here, and let my skin be warmed in conscious healing.”

His words hung in the air, it being one of the shortest speeches he had made in years. Enjolras had always been a beacon of moderation to him. He gazed upon him, so innocent and soft in the light of night, and he silently begged for his answer.

Enjolras nodded. He nodded and he turned away, falling into his side of the bed. Grantaire only watched him. “You’re still wearing all your clothes,” he noted.

“It is fine,” Enjolras replied.

“I am not demanding you divest yourself of your clothing, but I am letting you know you may be comfortable without it while you sleep,” and with that, he flopped over, back to Enjolras. He felt, after a few moments, Enjolras sit up, and he heard the sound of clothing being shifted. He didn’t dare turn, committed as he was to making him feel comfortable. And truly, he felt a surge of happiness then, knowing that Enjolras was clear of his bindings, simply indulging in comfortable sleep. Grantaire couldn’t understand how Enjolras could not understand that it was not an entire relationship he wanted or required. He just desired their company. He desired his vocation as a partner in Enjolras’ fine visions, a place in his future plans.

“Grantaire?” The voice came out of deep silence.

But he was ready. “Enjolras?”

“Do you still love me?” He was quiet, careful. He was being precious. It made Grantaire want to laugh. He was still there, underneath years of hardness. Enjolras was there, delicate and soft next to him, needing confirmation for love.

“More than my life.”

He was gone the next morning when Grantaire awoke. He cursed himself for having any fleeting hope that it would be any different.

He didn’t drink as much in the two weeks following the event, but Enjolras never came back. He felt it safe to begin his old life again, and there was at least some comfort in that. It was comfort found at the bottom of a bottle, but it was comfort nonetheless.

It was Spring when he seemed to awaken, only to be disappointed. Enjolras was stressed, as he always was, but he was stressed now because he needed another person, since he had long since stopped counting Grantaire.

“What about me?” Grantaire questioned, volunteering himself. He knew Enjolras couldn’t be happy with this. He had made as much clear throughout the years. He still presented himself. _Do you remember asking me to deliver messages, dearest Enjolras?_ He would never know.

It was the same distance they had had before Grantaire read the pamphlets, before they shared closeness that changed his life forever. Enjolras was denying that Grantaire had any standing in their cause, asking out loud, “Are you good for anything?” especially now that they were so _close_ to some end. It made him sick. It made him not deny what Enjolras was saying, for of course he didn’t believe in their cause completely. It had never been so.

So he fixed his eyes upon him, fearless, “I believe in you.”

Grantaire was not surprised at the sarcastic offer of a favor on Enjolras’ part that soon followed, and he laughed aloud at the notion that he would leave him and the rest of the revolution in peace as he sobered. “You are an ingrate, Enjolras.”

This incensed Enjolras, and it was always a good day, as far as Grantaire was concerned, when any reaction at all was drawn out. “You! The man to go to the Barriere du Maine! You, capable of it!”

But he begged. He fought in his way and he persuaded, until all that Enjolras could argue was that Grantaire was not being serious, that he was mocking the revolution. Grantaire fixed his smirk upon his angel, “I am wild.”

And so he was. He had been wild in their best times, and their worst--for the times of laughter and for the times of drunken shouts. It had once been a good thing, and then had been a vague annoyance, and now--it seemed to destroy any patience Enjolras still held for him. But he still relented, and Grantaire jammed on a coat the color of the poppies they had once planned long ago, and he got close enough to kiss him just before he left.

Could he remember? Grantaire did not linger enough to know if there was any hesitation on Enjolras’ part, any familiarity in being so close. He simply whispered, “Be easy,” a neutral phrase, indeed, if not for their closeness--not to mention their past. In spite, Grantaire hoped it would stay with him. In spite, he hoped Enjolras felt something stir within him, that he remembered their relationship, their love, their _plans_ \--and so, in spite, Grantaire decided to do nothing to help him.

If this were even a year ago, he knew he would do what he had begged Enjolras to let him do. If this were two, three years ago--he would do as he was asked. Four years ago--God, he would not have even had to ask. Enjolras used to trust him with things all the _time_. He used to take _breaks_. He used to--Grantaire took a deep breath.

Four years later, four years of death later--he missed life.

This was what he chased when he engaged the men in a game of dominoes. He chased the thrill of a win, the thrill of a disconnect from his own life. It never worked. Grantaire knew that he should have known it wouldn’t work, but he was there--he was there, and he wasn’t even doing terribly well. It was nothing, but that was precisely the point. He had long since lost everything, so he hurtled himself towards nothing.

“Grantaire!” he heard him before he saw him, and even then--shame already shooting through his gut--Grantaire only smiled. Of course. Of course he would choose these moments to check on him.

“I was just thinking about you,” Grantaire answered, stumbling from his place at the dominoes’ table.

“Were you? It seemed to make no difference on your conscience!” Enjolras was positively raging, even reaching out and physically pulling Grantaire by the forearm out into the warming, early summer air.

“Conscience--that conscience is a fickle thing,” Grantaire replied, shrugging.

“Grantaire, you have wasted my time,” he said, eyes on fire, hand still clutching him. “You are wrong--conscience is extraordinarily useful, if we choose to listen to it. I should have listened to mine, because _mine_ told me not to trust you with this. Mine told me that you would do--I had no idea what you would do, but I knew that it would not be what you begged me to do! My God, Grantaire, what has become of you?” When he was silent, blinking in the evening, Enjolras let out a bitter laugh. “He is silent. Now, the end must truly be upon us, because he is _silent_.”

“Is that what you wanted? Me to be silent?”

“I wanted you to care,” Enjolras responded, fearless and certain. “I wanted you to listen sometimes, rather than speaking, because when you speak--you say it yourself! You expound how little you care for anything you speak about, how you are not even the best source for anything! You are an intelligent man, Grantaire, and you waste it on wasting others’ time. Do you know what you can be, if you allow yourself?”

“Oh, we have not had one of _these_ talks in years!” he rolled his eyes, knowing it was not the time. He was not, for example, blushing as Enjolras told him of all the good that he was capable of doing. _God_. It was another lifetime.

Enjolras shook his head, disappointment clear. “Do you do these things to prove anything? What do you want to prove? All that I see proven is that I was right to know that you would take time away that I could be spending on the Revolution.” Grantaire took a deep breath as knives entered his body. _Fuck._ “You are still taking that time.”

He looked up, grimacing. “In the _Odyssey_ , you know--”

“Do not begin one of your speeches,” Enjolras warned.

“In Homer’s _Odyssey_ \--”

“You are still wasting my time. You have wasted time,” he said, turning on his heel and walking away. He obviously did not expect Grantaire to follow him, but follow him he did.

“--Odysseus enters the place of the dead, and through many spirits, he finds his old friends. He finds Achilles, for one, and Achilles warns him of the boredom that has befallen him, as one of the dead,” Grantaire said this as he struggled to keep up with the taller blond. “He does not warn against the pain of death. He does not warn against shame. He does not even warn against the pain of losing a loved one. No, those are all things Achilles believes he could bare, though in his lifetime, he did not think he could. No, the thing he complains about is how awful death because it consists of _nothing_.”

In the pause, Enjolras tried to dismiss Grantaire. “First, I am not in the mood for literary debates with you, Grantaire, and second--I am not interested in the character of Achilles, and I do not appreciate the way you are obviously bringing him up in relation somehow to me.”

Grantaire huffed, his breath giving out sooner than he’d like. But he forged on. “I will not compare you to Achilles, no, I do agree that you would have gone to war for Achaea tirelessly and without personal biases.”

Enjolras seemed as though he were about to thank Grantaire, but he resisted.

“I am, however, saying that there is a lesson you really should learn from this episode in the _Odyssey_.”

“And what, pray-tell, is that?” Enjolras snapped.

“You are going to cease to exist,” Grantaire said. They stopped their walk at a corner, Enjolras finally turning. Before he could speak, Grantaire continued. “Achilles dreamed of golden honor, perhaps of divine status, perhaps of fun and splendor and war if he so craved it. This was the great lie! For all that was waiting for him was a lifetime of darkness, and waiting, and eternal _nothing_.”

Enjolras clenched his jaw, understanding what Grantaire was getting at. And the latter didn’t let up. “How will you enjoy this, Enjolras? You will not. You cannot. You will be lost to the ages, and for what? For honor? For _nothing_ \--this is the truth! There is no reason for you to die, for any of our friends to die. There is _no_ reason. They will have grand, national parades for your defeat--but only because of your killers’ triumph! You will not be celebrated, Enjolras, do you not see that?” He was getting desperate, his eyes wide and his hands wildly gesturing around him.

Enjolras stood tall. He stood tall, and strong, and absolutely beautiful. “You never understood,” he said quietly. “You...you asked to join the cause, but you never understood it.”

“You are absolutely right,” Grantaire conceded, holding his arms out to his sides. “I understood that you were the most amazing person I had ever met in my life-- _will_ ever meet in my life. I understood that you were in love with a state of Paris that probably never existed, and a state of Paris that you will make sure you never see. I understood that you were taken by ideals and unshakable virtues, the likes of which no other man could dream of fulfilling but for you. But I never, _ever_ understood your love affair with your useless martyrdom for a people who will not remember you but for a foolish student, Enjolras.”

“Am I foolish student, Grantaire?” he asked, shaking his head. “How long have you thought this?”

“I do not--I should not have insulted you like that,” he quickly back-pedaled.

“Leave me to my cause, Grantaire,” he ordered.

“Enjolras--”

“Leave me.” And he was turning, turning down the corner where Grantaire should have gone, to pick up the slack that he had piled on him. It was all he could do to order his mind enough to get drunk, to completely disrupt the order of his mind once more.

“I will not go to his funeral,” he muttered to himself. “I will not go to his funeral. I will not--”

“Whose?” He had forgotten the woman who huddled next to him in that balmy night in June, and he made no move to further interact with her. He simply answered for what the answer was.

“A dead man’s.”

Days passed. Glasses were emptied. The people’s man died. A funeral was planned. Grantaire heard that they had erected a barricade after the rally, which he didn’t remember watching, but knew he had seen. He didn’t join them in the barricade before the last stroke of their guillotine, before the last day.

He drank with Joly, with Laigle.

“Grantaire, have you just come from the boulevard?” Laigle asked him.

“No,” he said, downing another glass.

But he had. He had seen the procession Laigle described. He had stood in a window of the third floor on the boulevard, managing to charm his way up the stairs. He had seen it all, had seen all their friends bounding down, had seen everyone else caught up in their fervor who followed them.

He had leaned against a window, drinking thoughtfully, and was surprised to find himself joined by an unarmed soldier. He didn’t make much conversation, deflecting the man’s questions. He couldn’t resist, however, when he pointed to Enjolras, who Grantaire had been trailing with his eyes the entire time.

“Who is that?” he had asked Grantaire.

He took a deep breath, “I have forgotten mortals are not used to knowing the gods walk the earth around us,” he said. Pushing himself off the window, he backed away towards the stairs, “That one there is Apollo, himself.”

But he did not wish to talk of him or any of the procession anymore, and he launched into drunken tangents with Joly and Bossuet. But Enjolras, absent as he was, interrupted with a child’s note to Bossuet. And he thought of him, as perfectly as he looked leading his procession. He thought of him requesting Bossuet, knowing that Joly was ill, and that Grantaire was--Grantaire.

“So much the worse for Enjolras,” he muttered to himself.

Things changed quickly. They had decided to stay for breakfast, rather than joining the others. It was a lovely thought, truly, but then--the loud riot clambered past the doors, past the windows. And their friends’ face were too much for Laigle or Joly to resist. They absconded with them into the Rue de la Chanvrerie.

It was a curse. Grantaire could not ignore them. Most importantly, he could not ignore Enjolras, and he answered by forcing Enjolras to not ignore _him_.

As he was speaking loudly, loudly enough to incur Courfeyrac’s attention, Enjolras turned slowly. Grantaire couldn’t help but forget the noise around them. All there had been was Enjolras. All there would be was Enjolras. All he was now--Enjolras had taken it all.

“Grantaire! Find elsewhere to rid yourself of those fumes,” he shouted, “Don’t disgrace the barricade.”

 _The barricade_. It was not a vague cause at all anymore. It was not a large group of people gathering for speeches. It was a place, a state of life, a mindset. It was the barricade, not just Enjolras, that Grantaire had to think about.

And it was exactly where he needed to be. He hated this. He disdained the idea that he couldn’t leave. The end was upon them, and it was easy enough to run--run like the people who were already deserting already. But it was too late for Grantaire. _I need to be here._

“Let me sleep here,” he said, looking up with wide, glassy eyes.

His mind was swimming. He only barely registered that Enjolras tried to send him away, so he tried again.

“Let me sleep here--until I die.”

The last of Enjolras’ pity was gone. It was evident in those moments. “You are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.”

 _Incapable of dying_. Grantaire had not realized that he would take from him even the idea of his existence, or his lack of such. Enjolras had finally, _finally_ sentenced him to nothingness. “You will see,” he said quietly, before his mind betrayed him. He succumbed to drunkenness, to exhaustion, and laid his head on the table. He took care to shield his red, tear-stained face as he slept.

He slept as barricade politics waged on. He slept through the deaths of Bahorel and Prouvaire, among others. He slept through the ordered desertion.

And he dreamed of a time long passed.

There was a time that Enjolras had huddled close to him, had traced the hair on his face, on his chest with soft, nimble fingers. And he spoke kindly, softly, with a smile. And he asked Grantaire, in the throes of what had seemed like imminent revolution--a revolution that hadn’t come--if they would marry.

“I have a dowry,” he confessed. And it was, truly, a confession.

“Your coming from wealth always does surprise me.”

“I come from lies,” Enjolras insisted, “But wealth, yes, and I have a dowry. And if we--if we marry, Grantaire, then it would fall to you.”

“I do not understand. I do not need money,” Grantaire had said, not knowing what he had said. Years ago, Enjolras had resolved to die, but he had not understood. “I only need you. I only need your company and your love. I only need you, Enjolras, none of your wealth.”

“Why must you flatter me so? I am very much yours, and you know this,” Enjolras said, laying his head on Grantaire’s chest.

“I fear one day you will forget.”

“I am more susceptible to forgetting my own self.”

Grantaire hummed. He could not argue, even then. Enjolras had a propensity towards putting everything else before himself, and it was Grantaire’s honor to make sure he was remembered, if only by him.

“If the revolution gets nearer, Grantaire,” he had said, so long ago, even before 1830. When they were happy, and whole, and right. “Marry me.”

“Why? We do not need--and you, you would have to wear a dress, and--”

Enjolras looked up, fixed him with his beautiful eyes, and that look clenched his vocal chords in submissive silence. “It worries me how little you see how much I value your life, Grantaire.”

In his daze then, so back then, when all plans were together and all plans were with one another, he could not understand what Enjolras had meant. But now--now as he stirred from his drunken slumber to the horrible silence of a barricade nearly defeated. He had slept through the deaths of so many friends. He had slept through so many deaths of people he now stepped over, stumbling from his place at the table.

He understood. He understood that Enjolras had once learned the truth about himself that Grantaire had only days before tried to shout at him. Enjolras had known he was going to die, in one revolution or another, years and years before it was happening. And he tried to protect Grantaire.

He wanted to marry him, as bourgeois as it was, if only it would secure Grantaire a life for himself after Enjolras was gone. He was thinking of Grantaire before himself. He had thought of Grantaire before so many, even offering to go back home, to put on dresses, if only it would mean that Grantaire would live well. And all this time? Grantaire knew he could not write off all of Enjolras’ speeches about him wasting time. He knew he could not write off his pain at hearing them. But still--had he only been trying to protect Grantaire?

When he told him to sleep elsewhere, to not disgrace the barricade--had he only meant for Grantaire to find somewhere safe for himself?

A round of gunshots rang clear in his ears, coming from a building to his left, and he dashed in. Across the stairs, laying on the floor--everywhere, there were bodies. He recognized some of their faces there, being people he had once laughed and conversed with. He also recognized that he could not care at a time like this, not when none of their hair was so lovely as the one for whom he was searching.

 _Shoot me!_ He heard his voice, clear as it was, and he took to stumbling his way more quickly towards it. He was alive. He was alive, but only for these moments. He was at the end. He was almost there, and Grantaire--Grantaire knew he was as well, and it was all he could do to make sure his last thoughts were of Enjolras. Enjolras _alive._

And finally, there he was.

He was strong, there, backed though he was into a corner. He saw in him, sweat-soaked, the same boy he had met in the rain. He saw in him the boy who rolled his eyes when the half-drunk had taken a pamphlet from him every day, until he declared what Grantaire declared then. “Long live the Republic!” he shouted, recalling the soldiers’ attention. “I belong to it.”

He had been beaten, and he had been humiliated, and he had been nailed and stuck, and he had been crucified, and he had been speared, and he had been buried, and now--now, Grantaire had risen again. And there he was, the angel at his tomb, as beautiful and golden as he had ever known him to be. He had found his transfiguration at the other end of a gun, staring down barrels as he placed himself next to Enjolras.

But he did not dwell on the divinity. He did not dwell on what would become soon enough. He undermined his own actions. “Finish both of us with one blow,” he suggested to their executioners. And then, finally, he turned to the one person who mattered in a room quickly filling with sunlight, spilling onto Enjolras’ glorious face. _How could I have ever lived without you? Let me sleep here. Let me die here._ “Do you permit it?”

Enjolras’ fingers intertwined with his.

He smiled.

He understood.

  
****

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a re-imagining of canon, and as such–much was taken from the translation on Project Gutenberg. Thanks to Victor Hugo for all the gaps (something I thought I would never say), I worked to fill in some of them. Other gaps, I left. Since this is meant to be Grantaire’s memory, he has blocked out a lot of the middle (and middles are quite difficult to write, so we helped one another out). The title is from Snow Patrol's "The Lightning Strike."
> 
> Also, timelines are terrible! I did my best, and I will plead writing from the POV of a drunkard if things are amiss. It’s either that or cry shamefully. I’m sure you understand. In all seriousness, I did try very hard to stick within the guidelines of the brick. For example, you may know that Hugo wrote that in his lifetime, Enjolras only bestowed two kisses (these being on the dead heads of Gavroche and Mabeuf). You will see that he initiates none of the kisses in the above ficlet. He may accept them, but it is always Grantaire who was forthright in “bestowing” them.
> 
> After that gratuitous defense, I am sure there are holes in this, and I apologize. At the end of the day, this is fanfiction, and I must accept.
> 
> Furthermore, this is my first publicly posted work! I appreciate any comment you may have very much as I am learning, and I am on [Tumblr](http://lesbiamy.tumblr.com) if you'd like to say hello/leave a more private comment (good or bad!). I have two fics in the making, both about halfway finished and both about 20k words right now. I wanted to publish something short in order to get used to it, and this is what I have produced. Thank you for reading!!
> 
> (and thank you to my dear partner who has contributed pain for this, and so here’s pain right back. love you, mean it, etc.)


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